IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THE FEAST OF CALABASHES--INACCURACY OF CERTAIN
PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS OF THE ISLANDS--A REASON--NEGLECTED STATE OF
HEATHENISM IN THE VALLEY--EFFIGY OF A DEAD WARRIOR--A SINGULAR
SUPERSTITION--THE PRIEST KOLORY AND THE GOD MOA ARTUA--AMAZING RELIGIOUS
OBSERVANCE--A DILAPIDATED SHRINE--KORY-KORY AND THE IDOL--AN INFERENCE
Although I had been baffled in my attempts to learn the origin of
the Feast of Calabashes, yet it seemed very plain to me that it was
principally, if not wholly, of a religious character. As a religious
solemnity, however, it had not at all corresponded with the horrible
descriptions of Polynesian worship which we have received in some
published narratives, and especially in those accounts of the
evangelized islands with which the missionaries have favoured us. Did
not the sacred character of these persons render the purity of their
intentions unquestionable, I should certainly be led to suppose that
they had exaggerated the evils of Paganism, in order to enhance the
merit of their own disinterested labours.
In a certain work incidentally treating of the ‘Washington, or Northern
Marquesas Islands,’ I have seen the frequent immolation of human victims
upon the altars of their gods, positively and repeatedly charged upon
the inhabitants. The same work gives also a rather minute account of
their religion--enumerates a great many of their superstitions--and
makes known the particular designations of numerous orders of the
priesthood. One would almost imagine from the long list that is given
of cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and other
inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the
rest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely
priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states. These
accounts are likewise calculated to leave upon the reader’s mind an
impression that human victims are daily cooked and served up upon the
altars; that heathenish cruelties of every description are continually
practised; and that these ignorant Pagans are in a state of the
extremest wretchedness in consequence of the grossness of their
superstitions. Be it observed, however, that all this information is
given by a man who, according to his own statement, was only at one of
the islands, and remained there but two weeks, sleeping every night on
board his ship, and taking little kid-glove excursions ashore in the
daytime, attended by an armed party.
Now, all I can say is, that in all my excursions through the valley of
Typee, I never saw any of these alleged enormities. If any of them are
practised upon the Marquesas Islands they must certainly have come to
my knowledge while living for months with a tribe of savages, wholly
unchanged from their original primitive condition, and reputed the most
ferocious in the South Seas.
The fact is, that there is a vast deal of unintentional humbuggery
in some of the accounts we have from scientific men concerning the
religious institutions of Polynesia. These learned tourists generally
obtain the greater part of their information from retired old South-Sea
rovers, who have domesticated themselves among the barbarous tribes of
the Pacific. Jack, who has long been accustomed to the long-bow, and
to spin tough yarns on the ship’s forecastle, invariably officiates as
showman of the island on which he has settled, and having mastered a few
dozen words of the language, is supposed to know all about the people
who speak it. A natural desire to make himself of consequence in the
eyes of the strangers, prompts him to lay claim to a much greater
knowledge of such matters than he actually possesses. In reply to
incessant queries, he communicates not only all he knows but a good deal
more, and if there be any information deficient still he is at no
loss to supply it. The avidity with which his anecdotes are noted
down tickles his vanity, and his powers of invention increase with the
credulity auditors. He knows just the sort of information wanted, and
furnishes it to any extent.
This is not a supposed case; I have met with several individuals like
the one described, and I have been present at two or three of their
interviews with strangers.
Now, when the scientific voyager arrives at home with his collection
of wonders, he attempts, perhaps, to give a description of some of the
strange people he has been visiting. Instead of representing them as
a community of lusty savages, who are leading a merry, idle, innocent
life, he enters into a very circumstantial and learned narrative of
certain unaccountable superstitions and practices, about which he knows
as little as the islanders themselves. Having had little time, and
scarcely any opportunity, to become acquainted with the customs he
pretends to describe, he writes them down one after another in an
off-hand, haphazard style; and were the book thus produced to be
translated into the tongue of the people of whom it purports to give the
history, it would appear quite as wonderful to them as it does to the
American public, and much more improbable.
For my own part, I am free to confess my almost entire inability to
gratify any curiosity that may be felt with regard to the theology of
the valley. I doubt whether the inhabitants themselves could do so. They
are either too lazy or too sensible to worry themselves about abstract
points of religious belief. While I was among them, they never held any
synods or councils to settle the principles of their faith by agitating
them. An unbounded liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Those
who pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in an
ill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat shapeless arms crossed
upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having no
likeness either in heaven or on earth, could hardly be called an idol.
As the islanders always maintained a discreet reserve with regard to
my own peculiar views on religion, I thought it would be excessively
ill-bred of me to pry into theirs.
But, although my knowledge of the religious faith of the Typees was
unavoidably limited, one of their superstitious observances with which I
became acquainted interested me greatly.
In one of the most secluded portions of the valley within a stone’s
cast of Fayaway’s lake--for so I christened the scene of our island
yachting--and hard by a growth of palms, which stood ranged in order
along both banks of the stream, waving their green arms as if to do
honour to its passage, was the mausoleum of a deceased, warrior chief.
Like all the other edifices of any note, it was raised upon a small
pi-pi of stones, which, being of unusual height, was a conspicuous
object from a distance. A light thatching of bleached palmetto-leaves
hung over it like a self supported canopy; for it was not until you
came very near that you saw it was supported by four slender columns of
bamboo rising at each corner to a little more than the height of a man.
A clear area of a few yards surrounded the pi-pi, and was enclosed by
four trunks of cocoanut trees resting at the angles on massive blocks of
stone. The place was sacred. The sign of the inscrutable Taboo was seen
in the shape of a mystic roll of white tappa, suspended by a twisted
cord of the same material from the top of a slight pole planted within
the enclosure*. The sanctity of the spot appeared never to have been
violated. The stillness of the grave was there, and the calm solitude
around was beautiful and touching. The soft shadows of those lofty
palm-trees!--I can see them now--hanging over the little temple, as if
to keep out the intrusive sun.
*White appears to be the sacred colour among the Marquesans.
On all sides as you approached this silent spot you caught sight of the
dead chief’s effigy, seated in the stern of a canoe, which was raised on
a light frame a few inches above the level of the pi-pi. The canoe was
about seven feet in length; of a rich, dark coloured wood, handsomely
carved and adorned in many places with variegated bindings of stained
sinnate, into which were ingeniously wrought a number of sparkling
seashells, and a belt of the same shells ran all round it. The body
of the figure--of whatever material it might have been made--was
effectually concealed in a heavy robe of brown tappa, revealing; only
the hands and head; the latter skilfully carved in wood, and surmounted
by a superb arch of plumes. These plumes, in the subdued and gentle
gales which found access to this sequestered spot, were never for one
moment at rest, but kept nodding and waving over the chief’s brow. The
long leaves of the palmetto drooped over the eaves, and through them you
saw the warrior holding his paddle with both hands in the act of rowing,
leaning forward and inclining his head, as if eager to hurry on his
voyage. Glaring at him forever, and face to face, was a polished human
skull, which crowned the prow of the canoe. The spectral figurehead,
reversed in its position, glancing backwards, seemed to mock the
impatient attitude of the warrior.
When I first visited this singular place with Kory-Kory, he told me--or
at least I so understood him--that the chief was paddling his way to
the realms of bliss, and bread-fruit--the Polynesian heaven--where
every moment the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripened spheres to the
ground, and where there was no end to the cocoanuts and bananas: there
they reposed through the livelong eternity upon mats much finer than
those of Typee; and every day bathed their glowing limbs in rivers
of cocoanut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and
feathers, and boars’-tusks and sperm-whale teeth, far preferable to all
the shining trinkets and gay tappa of the white men; and, best of all,
women far lovelier than the daughters of earth were there in abundance.
‘A very pleasant place,’ Kory-Kory said it was; ‘but after all, not much
pleasanter, he thought, than Typee.’ ‘Did he not then,’ I asked him,
‘wish to accompany the warrior?’ ‘Oh no: he was very happy where he was;
but supposed that some time or other he would go in his own canoe.’
Thus far, I think, I clearly comprehended Kory-Kory. But there was a
singular expression he made use of at the time, enforced by as singular
a gesture, the meaning of which I would have given much to penetrate.
I am inclined to believe it must have been a proverb he uttered; for I
afterwards heard him repeat the same words several times, and in what
appeared to me to be a somewhat: similar sense. Indeed, Kory-Kory had
a great variety of short, smart-sounding sentences, with which he
frequently enlivened his discourse; and he introduced them with an air
which plainly intimated, that in his opinion, they settled the matter in
question, whatever it might be.
Could it have been then, that when I asked him whether he desired to go
to this heaven of bread-fruit, cocoanuts, and young ladies, which he had
been describing, he answered by saying something equivalent to our
old adage--‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’?--if he did,
Kory-Kory was a discreet and sensible fellow, and I cannot sufficiently
admire his shrewdness.
Whenever, in the course of my rambles through the valley I happened to
be near the chief’s mausoleum, I always turned aside to visit it. The
place had a peculiar charm for me; I hardly know why, but so it was. As
I leaned over the railing and gazed upon the strange effigy and watched
the play of the feathery head-dress, stirred by the same breeze which in
low tones breathed amidst the lofty palm-trees, I loved to yield myself
up to the fanciful superstition of the islanders, and could almost
believe that the grim warrior was bound heavenward. In this mood when
I turned to depart, I bade him ‘God speed, and a pleasant voyage.’ Aye,
paddle away, brave chieftain, to the land of spirits! To the material
eye thou makest but little progress; but with the eye of faith, I see
thy canoe cleaving the bright waves, which die away on those dimly
looming shores of Paradise.
This strange superstition affords another evidence of the fact, that
however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal
spirit yearning, after the unknown future.
Although the religious theories of the islands were a complete mystery
to me, their practical every-day operation could not be concealed. I
frequently passed the little temples reposing in the shadows of the
taboo groves and beheld the offerings--mouldy fruit spread out upon
a rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed baskets around some uncouth
jolly-looking image; I was present during the continuance of the
festival; I daily beheld the grinning idols marshalled rank and file in
the Hoolah Hoolah ground, and was often in the habit of meeting
those whom I supposed to be the priests. But the temples seemed to be
abandoned to solitude; the festival had been nothing more than a jovial
mingling of the tribe; the idols were quite harmless as any other logs
of wood; and the priests were the merriest dogs in the valley.
In fact religious affairs in Typee were at a very low ebb: all such
matters sat very lightly upon the thoughtless inhabitants; and, in the
celebration of many of their strange rites, they appeared merely to seek
a sort of childish amusement.
A curious evidence of this was given in a remarkable ceremony in which I
frequently saw Mehevi and several other chefs and warriors of note take
part; but never a single female.
Among those whom I looked upon as forming the priesthood of the valley,
there was one in particular who often attracted my notice, and whom
I could not help regarding as the head of the order. He was a noble
looking man, in the prime of his life, and of a most benignant aspect.
The authority this man, whose name was Kolory, seemed to exercise over
the rest, the episcopal part he took in the Feast of Calabashes, his
sleek and complacent appearance, the mystic characters which were
tattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore,
in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanut
branch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets
gathered together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, all
these pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee. Kolory was a sort of
Knight Templar--a soldier-priest; for he often wore the dress of a
Marquesan warrior, and always carried a long spear, which, instead of
terminating in a paddle at the lower end, after the general fashion of
these weapons, was curved into a heathenish-looking little image. This
instrument, however, might perhaps have been emblematic of his double
functions. With one end in carnal combat he transfixed the enemies of
his tribe; and with the other as a pastoral crook he kept in order his
spiritual flock. But this is not all I have to say about Kolory.
His martial grace very often carried about with him what seemed to me
the half of a broken war-club. It was swathed round with ragged bits of
white tappa, and the upper part, which was intended to represent a
human head, was embellished with a strip of scarlet cloth of European
manufacture. It required little observation to discover that this
strange object was revered as a god. By the side of the big and lusty
images standing sentinel over the altars of the Hoolah Hoolah ground, it
seemed a mere pigmy in tatters. But appearances all the world over are
deceptive. Little men are sometimes very potent, and rags sometimes
cover very extensive pretensions. In fact, this funny little image was
the ‘crack’ god of the island; lording it over all the wooden lubbers
who looked so grim and dreadful; its name was Moa Artua*. And it was in
honour of Moa Artua, and for the entertainment of those who believe in
him, that the curious ceremony I am about to describe was observed.
*The word ‘Artua’, although having some other significations, is in
nearly all the Polynesian dialects used as the general designation of
the gods.
Mehevi and the chieftains of the Ti have just risen from their noontide
slumbers. There are no affairs of state to dispose of; and having eaten
two or three breakfasts in the course of the morning, the magnates of
the valley feel no appetite as yet for dinner. How are their leisure
moments to be occupied? They smoke, they chat, and at last one of their
number makes a proposition to the rest, who joyfully acquiescing, he
darts out of the house, leaps from the pi-pi, and disappears in the
grove. Soon you see him returning with Kolory, who bears the god Moa
Artua in his arms, and carries in one hand a small trough, hollowed out
in the likeness of a canoe. The priest comes along dandling his charge
as if it were a lachrymose infant he was endeavouring to put into a
good humour. Presently entering the Ti, he seats himself on the mats as
composedly as a juggler about to perform his sleight-of-hand tricks; and
with the chiefs disposed in a circle around him, commences his ceremony.
In the first place he gives Moa Artua an affectionate hug, then
caressingly lays him to his breast, and, finally, whispers something in
his ear; the rest of the company listening eagerly for a reply. But
the baby-god is deaf or dumb,--perhaps both, for never a word does, he
utter. At last Kolory speaks a little louder, and soon growing angry,
comes boldly out with what he has to say and bawls to him. He put me in
mind of a choleric fellow, who, after trying in vain to communicated a
secret to a deaf man, all at once flies into a passion and screams it
out so that every one may hear. Still Moa Artua remains as quiet as
ever; and Kolory, seemingly losing his temper, fetches him a box over
the head, strips him of his tappa and red cloth, and laying him in
a state of nudity in a little trough, covers him from sight. At this
proceeding all present loudly applaud and signify their approval by
uttering the adjective ‘motarkee’ with violent emphasis. Kolory however,
is so desirous his conduct should meet with unqualified approbation,
that he inquires of each individual separately whether under existing
circumstances he has not done perfectly right in shutting up Moa Artua.
The invariable response is ‘Aa, Aa’ (yes, yes), repeated over again
and again in a manner which ought to quiet the scruples of the most
conscientious. After a few moments Kolory brings forth his doll again,
and while arraying it very carefully in the tappa and red cloth,
alternately fondles and chides it. The toilet being completed, he once
more speaks to it aloud. The whole company hereupon show the greatest
interest; while the priest holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to
them what he pretends the god is confidentially communicating to him.
Some items intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one
claps his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a third
leaps to his feet and capers about like a madman.
What under the sun Moa Artua on these occasions had to say to Kolory
I never could find out; but I could not help thinking that the former
showed a sad want of spirit in being disciplined into making those
disclosures, which at first he seemed bent on withholding. Whether the
priest honestly interpreted what he believed the divinity said to him,
or whether he was not all the while guilty of a vile humbug, I shall
not presume to decide. At any rate, whatever as coming from the god
was imparted to those present seemed to be generally of a complimentary
nature: a fact which illustrates the sagacity of Kolory, or else the
timeserving disposition of this hardly used deity.
Moa Artua having nothing more to say, his bearer goes to nursing
him again, in which occupation, however, he is soon interrupted by a
question put by one of the warriors to the god. Kolory hereupon snatches
it up to his ear again, and after listening attentively, once more
officiates as the organ of communication. A multitude of questions and
answers having passed between the parties, much to the satisfaction of
those who propose them, the god is put tenderly to bed in the trough,
and the whole company unite in a long chant, led off by Kolory. This
ended, the ceremony is over; the chiefs rise to their feet in high good
humour, and my Lord Archbishop, after chatting awhile, and regaling
himself with a whiff or two from a pipe of tobacco, tucks the canoe
under his arm and marches off with it.
The whole of these proceedings were like those of a parcel of children
playing with dolls and baby houses.
For a youngster scarcely ten inches high, and with so few early
advantages as he doubtless had had, Moa Artua was certainly a precocious
little fellow if he really said all that was imputed to him; but for
what reason this poor devil of a deity, thus cuffed about, cajoled, and
shut up in a box, was held in greater estimation than the full-grown
and dignified personages of the Taboo Groves, I cannot divine. And yet
Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable veracity--to say nothing of
the Primate himself--assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was
the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a
whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.
Kory-Kory--who seemed to have devoted considerable attention to the
study of theology, as he knew the names of all the graven images in the
valley, and often repeated them over to me--likewise entertained some
rather enlarged ideas with regard to the character and pretensions of
Moa Artua. He once gave me to understand, with a gesture there was no
misconceiving, that if he (Moa Artua) were so minded he could cause a
cocoanut tree to sprout out of his (Kory-Kory’s) head; and that it
would be the easiest thing in life for him (Moa Artua) to take the whole
island of Nukuheva in his mouth and dive down to the bottom of the sea
with it.
But in sober seriousness, I hardly knew what to make of the religion
of the valley. There was nothing that so much perplexed the illustrious
Cook, in his intercourse with the South Sea islanders, as their sacred
rites. Although this prince of navigators was in many instances assisted
by interpreters in the prosecution of his researches, he still frankly
acknowledges that he was at a loss to obtain anything like a clear
insight into the puzzling arcana of their faith. A similar admission has
been made by other eminent voyagers: by Carteret, Byron, Kotzebue, and
Vancouver.
For my own part, although hardly a day passed while I remained upon the
island that I did not witness some religious ceremony or other, it was
very much like seeing a parcel of ‘Freemasons’ making secret signs to
each other; I saw everything, but could comprehend nothing.
On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the islanders in the
Pacific have no fixed and definite ideas whatever on the subject of
religion. I am persuaded that Kolory himself would be effectually posed
were he called upon to draw up the articles of his faith and pronounce
the creed by which he hoped to be saved. In truth, the Typees, so far
as their actions evince, submitted to no laws human or divine--always
excepting the thrice mysterious Taboo. The ‘independent electors’ of the
valley were not to be brow-beaten by chiefs, priests, idol or devils.
As for the luckless idols, they received more hard knocks than
supplications. I do not wonder that some of them looked so grim, and
stood so bolt upright as if fearful of looking to the right or the left
lest they should give any one offence. The fact is, they had to
carry themselves ‘PRETTY STRAIGHT,’ or suffer the consequences. Their
worshippers were such a precious set of fickle-minded and irreverent
heathens, that there was no telling when they might topple one of them
over, break it to pieces, and making a fire with it on the very altar
itself, fall to roasting the offerings of bread-fruit, and at them in
spite of its teeth.
In how little reverence these unfortunate deities were held by the
natives was on one occasion most convincingly proved to me.--Walking
with Kory-Kory through the deepest recesses of the groves, I perceived
a curious looking image, about six feet in height which originally had
been placed upright against a low pi-pi, surmounted by a ruinous bamboo
temple, but having become fatigued and weak in the knees, was now
carelessly leaning against it. The idol was partly concealed by the
foliage of a tree which stood near, and whose leafy boughs drooped over
the pile of stones, as if to protect the rude fane from the decay to
which it was rapidly hastening. The image itself was nothing more than
a grotesquely shaped log, carved in the likeness of a portly naked man
with the arms clasped over the head, the jaws thrown wide apart, and its
thick shapeless legs bowed into an arch. It was much decayed. The
lower part was overgrown with a bright silky moss. Thin spears of grass
sprouted from the distended mouth, and fringed the outline of the head
and arms. His godship had literally attained a green old age. All its
prominent points were bruised and battered, or entirely rotted away.
The nose had taken its departure, and from the general appearance of the
head it might have, been supposed that the wooden divinity, in despair
at the neglect of its worshippers, had been trying to beat its own
brains out against the surrounding trees.
I drew near to inspect more closely this strange object of idolatry, but
halted reverently at the distance of two or three paces, out of regard
to the religious prejudices of my valet. As soon, however, as Kory-Kory
perceived that I was in one of my inquiring, scientific moods, to my
astonishment, he sprang to the side of the idol, and pushing it away
from the stones against which it rested, endeavoured to make it stand
upon its legs. But the divinity had lost the use of them altogether; and
while Kory-Kory was trying to prop it up, placing a stick between it
and the pi-pi, the monster fell clumsily to the ground, and would have
infallibly have broken its neck had not Kory-Kory providentially broken
its fall by receiving its whole weight on his own half-crushed back. I
never saw the honest fellow in such a rage before. He leaped furiously
to his feet, and seizing the stick, began beating the poor image: every
moment, or two pausing and talking to it in the most violent manner, as
if upbraiding it for the accident. When his indignation had subsided
a little he whirled the idol about most profanely, so as to give me an
opportunity of examining it on all sides. I am quite sure I never should
have presumed to have taken such liberties with the god myself, and I
was not a little shocked at Kory-Kory’s impiety.
This anecdote speaks for itself. When one of the inferior order of
natives could show such contempt for a venerable and decrepit God of the
Groves, what the state of religion must be among the people in general
is easy to be imagined. In truth, I regard the Typees as a back-slidden
generation. They are sunk in religious sloth, and require a spiritual
revival. A long prosperity of bread-fruit and cocoanuts has rendered
them remiss in the performance of their higher obligations. The wood-rot
malady is spreading among the idols--the fruit upon their altars
is becoming offensive--the temples themselves need rethatching--the
tattooed clergy are altogether too light-hearted and lazy--and their
flocks are going astray.